NETHER PROVIDENCE – They never saw him coming, if only because they could have never predicted what would happen.

With West Chester Henderson up by two points over Strath Haven with 2.8 seconds to go in the teams’ District 1 Class AAAA opening-round game Friday night, the Warriors couldn’t have ever imagined that the Panthers would unveil the play that they chose to go with. Probably because Haven had never run it before. Ever.

The lack of familiarity was evident the first time when John Fender had to call timeout when he couldn’t spy an open teammate. Fender made up for it on the second try, though, when he spied a wide-open Eric Trowery under the basket. But Sherry calling the shots for the Panthers had its perks, because a moment later, Trowery celebrated his game-tying layup by flexing his arms and in overtime, it was Sherry who flexed his muscle by putting back a Fender miss with 3.5 seconds to go to seal the No. 16 Panthers’ 47-45 thrilling win over the No. 17 Warriors.

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Haven will get its chance to slay Goliath Tuesday night when it takes on No. 1 Chester, which easily took out No. 32 West Chester Rustin, 86-57, at the Clip Joint.

“At first, (Dougherty) told me to run a screen for Tevon (Howie) and there was nobody there,” said Trowery, who finished with 15 points and eight rebounds. “So we had to call timeout. Then (Dougherty) told me to go back door, Sherry was going to set a screen for me. So the second time we came out after the timeout, I just thought to myself, ‘I’m going to make this. I’m going to make this shot.’ Ran the play, Fender threw a nice pass to me - it was real nice - got the ball and laid it up.”

Did he ever expect to find himself so open?

“No,” Trowery said with a smile. “That was a nice screen by Sherry.”

When the dirty work was done, it was time for Sherry to shine. The senior never expected to find himself with the fate of the game balancing in his hands, but after Fender’s drive through the lane ended with a miss off the glass, Sherry leaped above the pack and deftly dumped the ball in for the winning points with 3.5 seconds to go. A final Henderson heave was off the mark and would have been too late anyway.

“I never really thought about that, but I was just happy to have Fender’s back on that one,” said Sherry, who also added four blocks and three rebounds. “He came up on a tough shot, threw it off the glass and I was just ready for the putback. It was a great feeling and I just had to put it back up soft off the glass.”

The Warriors (15-9) never trailed in regulation, but they got down one when Fender split a pair of free throws for his lone point of the game. Haven’s leading scorer played sparingly after suffering an ankle injury, including missing the entire third quarter, and Henderson’s slow, deliberate offense compounded things. Henderson built a 38-33 lead in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, but Trowery capped a game-tying 5-0 mini-run when he swiped a steal and threw down a dunk.

Unfazed, the Warriors bounced back with a long jumper from Jason McCormick that preceded a wide-open layup from Declan Kane with less than 10 seconds to go to set up Trowery’s heroics for the Panthers (17-6).

“It’s playoff basketball,” Henderson coach Chris Bruno said. “You practice all year for those situations and if you do what you’re supposed to do, you move on. If you don’t, your season’s over. Trowery, we know him from before, he was at Coatesville. He’s a great player. ...It’s playoff basketball. What do you have, a (16) vs. a (17) seed? You’re going to have two teams that are very comparable and it’s going to come down to the end. The team that does what they do best is going to win and (Friday) that was Strath Haven.”